There’s at least one Rockets player ready for the regular season to start. Houston faced San Antonio last night during an intra-state matchup of two of the Western Conference’s best teams, and the player GM’s voted the NBA’s best shooting guard, James Harden, showed why during the Rockets’ 109-92 preseason win over the defending Western Conference champion Spurs.

These two Texas teams are going to have some battles, and could conceivably meet in the later round of the playoffs, though we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. There were a lot of Lakers fans that felt stung by Harden’s selection by GM’s as the best off-guard in the league, but can you blame them?

He was feeling it last night after shaking and baking Marco Bellinelli before stepping back to drain the jumper.

Harden also found time to get out in transition, and this no-look feed to Chandler Parsons on the break hoodwinked Tiago Splitter to give Chandler an uncontested slam.

For the game, Harden had a double-double (22 points and 11 assists) in under 30 minutes of action. Watch out, James Harden might be getting even better.

Also, the obligatory, it’s still just preseason, but the real season is so close it’s hard to contain our excitement.